Summary

• Receiving involves seeing and hearing.
  • Noise pollution, such as crowds and music, may obscure or distract our attention from auditory input.
• Attending to information involves devoting attention to the information you’ve received. This step in the listening process is affected by factors including salience and multitasking online.
  • Information’s salience, the degree to which it seems especially noticeable and significant, affects our ability to attend to the information.
  • Multitasking online erodes the ability to give sustained, focused attention. Therefore, limiting the amount of time you multitask online can improve your attention when listening.
  • Another way to improve your attention is to elevate it as follows:
    • Develop an awareness of your attention level.
    • Take note of encounters in which you should listen carefully, but that seem to trigger low levels of attention.
    • Consider the optimal level of attention required for adequate listening during these encounters.
    • Compare the desired level of attention to your actual level of attention, thereby identifying the gap in your attention.
    • Elevate your attention level to close the gap.
  • If you find your attention wandering, practice mental bracketing, which involves systematically putting aside irrelevant thoughts.
• Understanding involves interpreting the meaning of another person’s communication by comparing newly received information to past knowledge.
  • New information is placed into short-term memory, whereas older knowledge is recalled from long-term memory.
• Responding involves communicating attention and understanding, often through feedback, back-channel cues, paraphrasing, and clarifying.
  • Verbal and nonverbal feedback can be negative or positive.
  • Back-channel cues, one form of positive feedback, involves verbal and nonverbal affirmations—such as nodding and/or saying, “That makes sense”—that can aid active listening.
  • Paraphrasing, another form of positive feedback, involves summarizing others’ comments after they have finished speaking—should be complemented with follow-up questions.
    • Clarifying, such as asking a speaker to repeat or restate something that you did not understand, also represents positive feedback because it conveys a desire to understand.
  • Recalling involves remembering the information after you’ve received, attended to, understood, and responded to the information.
    • Recall can be enhanced by mnemonics (devices that aid memory, such as acronyms that help you remember words in the correct order), taking notes, and using all five senses while listening.

• Listening has five functions:
  • Listening to comprehend involves accurately interpreting and storing information for the purpose of later recall.
  • Listening to discern involves distinguishing specific sounds, such as vocal tones, from one another.
  • Listening to analyze involves the careful evaluation of a message for the purpose of judgment.
  • Listening to appreciate means simply enjoying what is being seen and heard, and then responding to express your appreciation.
  • Listening to support involves providing comfort to a conversational partner.
• We adapt our listening purpose based on the changing demands of interpersonal encounters.

• There are four listening styles:
  • Action-oriented listeners want accurate and concise messages from others, thereby allowing the listeners to determine courses of action.
  • Time-oriented listeners want brief encounters and to stick to schedules.
  • People-oriented listeners view listening as an opportunity to establish commonalties between themselves and others.
  • Content-oriented listeners prefer to be intellectually challenged by the messages they receive during interpersonal encounters.
• Most people only use one or two listening styles in all of their interpersonal interactions and resist attempts to change.
  • To be an active listener, you have to use all four styles.
• Women are more likely to use people- and content-oriented listening styles. Men are more likely to use time- and action-oriented styles.
• Whereas people from individualistic cultures prefer to use time- and action-oriented listening styles, people from collectivistic cultures rely more heavily on people- and content-oriented listening styles.

• Selective listening occurs when someone takes in only bits and pieces of salient information and dismisses the rest of what is said.
  • Although selective listening is difficult to avoid because it emanates from natural instincts, improving your overall attention can reduce the amount of time you spend listening selectively.
• Eavesdropping, or listening in on private conversations, is always unethical.
• Pseudo-listening is pretending to pay attention to someone.
  • Although pseudo-listening can be innocuous or even considerate (e.g., feigning attention in order to avoid offending an aging relative who repeats information), it should never become a regular practice.
• Aggressive listening (also called ambushing) occurs when someone attends to what other people say solely for the purpose of attacking them.
  • People who engage in aggressive listening online, setting traps that will create openings for conflict, are called provocateurs.
  • If you habitually practice aggressive listening, whether face-to-face or online, try to discover and address the root cause of your aggression.
• Narcissistic listening is self-absorbed listening, wherein the listener ignores what others have to say and redirects the conversation to the listener’s interests.
  • To avoid narcissistic listening, allow the conversation to focus on topics that interest others, and offer positive feedback about those topics.